Homophobic Russian Ad Warns that The Gays Will Take Over if People Don’t Vote

A homophobic Russian ad, released on Friday, depicts a man's worst nightmare on the night before the election--gays everywhere! Essentially, it tells Russians that if they don't vote on March 17, they will be forced to house gay people in their homes and get drafted by the military, even in their 60s, because who needs logic when you can go for gay panic?

The ad begins with a man and his wife getting into bed. The wife sets an alarm so that she can get up early for the polls, and her husband mocks her, saying "As if they won't elect someone without you." He dreams that a group of military men knock on his door, dabbing in perfect synchronization, telling him that the age of conscription has been raised to 60 years old and that he must join the army. He then goes to the kitchen to find a gay man in a slouchy pink top.

"Who's this?" the man asks his wife. "I'm a gay on a homestay," the gay man replies. "The law is the law," he says as he bites seductively into a banana.

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The man runs to the toilet, only to be told by a hidden intercom that toilet time has been restricted. Like any ridiculous dream sequence, the video ends with the man's awakening and resulting realization that this has all been a dream.

Ksenia Sobchak, a liberal journalist and one of Putin's rivals in the election, called the video "no joke" and "an incitement to hatred."

Actress Svetlana Galka, who portrayed the wife in the video, dismissed that it might be homophobic.

"This is simply a humorous promo, so what?" she said to the Govorit Moskva radio station.